Two for Father's Day:

 Fatherhood: No wonder it's such a complicated concept.

My father died forgetful, but unforgettable, for so many actions and so many traits.

Grand father and son                                      

In photos, desert-uniformed

military trimmed

nineteen and twenty year olds

lounge jauntily, pleasurably on or under

armed wings of now obsolete

killing machines in North Africa,

relieving boredom or

relaxing between or before

risking, meeting or dealing

death sixty-six years ago; men

young as this other

nineteen-year-old in

Death-Metal T-shirt

peacefully scanning, enjoying

images of himself reflected in

one subject of many pictures:

Family resemblance not completely

masked by much longer hair, and

flouting little beard 

Between these two young men is

me, the only aged face

in this unsnapped shot,

shared features wrinkled over by

gathering symptoms of late and

lengthening middle age---

Hair thinning beyond military standards

beard vainly removed because

a shade too close to Santa;

thankful the pictured youngster

survived to generate these now

bi-focalled eyes and gift this

vision, living history

traced in a cocky

bullet-proof late-teen

grin shared across

miles and miles and

years and years.

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History lessons

Sunday night in September

at Greenwoods’ listening to the poet read

a poem about reading a poem

at Greenwoods’ four years ago.

Shelves of War Books

behind. My dad is maybe mentioned

in one or two of the histories. He was in

several sixty years after D-Day.

I’ve never read them or searched out

those references. Maybe they tell stories

I’ve heard a dozen times or more, live

in the living room or at the family table. Maybe

they’re stories a son should never hear

about his father.  Maybe they’re so

slight they will mimic the life

he seemed to think he had lived ever since,

trying to regain the status he once risked --

asking a kid on the C-train who has no idea

what he’s talking about, coming home

from a Flames game in Calgary,

“Say, why don’t  you stand up

and give an old Spitfire pilot a seat?”

Telling us in moments of our own relative

or perceived failure, “You’d never

make it as a fighter pilot,”

as if we should want to try.

As if that were the only test of a man’s worth.

As if he could have celebrated with us if we did

make it in the world that made him better

than we could ever be.

We all had to survive that war,

many times over,

his kids and him. 

June 2013 draft